Bullpup Configuration

Submission 28,685

About

Bullpup Configuration refers to a firearm configuration where the magazine and mechanism are situated behind the trigger rather than ahead of it, resulting in a lighter, more easily maneuvered weapon. There are several meme formats referring to the bullpup configuration.

Origin

Bullpup configuration has been the subject of memes in niche gun-related communities on sites like Facebook and Reddit since at least 2017, although interest increased around mid-July 2020. One of the earliest bullpup-related memes dates back to an anonymous 4chan post from October 14th, 2017, showing a photoshopped "bullpup revolver" (shown below). Although the original post is lost, it is frequently reposted in gun communities, including once on September 21st, 2020 by Facebook^[13] page Bootleg Gunz:The Bazaar of Bizarre Guns, garnering over 5,900 reactions and 2,000 shares in 4 months.

Spread

Grandmaster Jay's AR-15 "Bullpup"

Sometime prior to July 29th, 2020, Grandmaster Jay, the leader of the Not Fucking Around Coalition (NFAC), frequently described as a "black nationalist militia movement," uploaded a now-deleted video to YouTube^[1] in which he demonstrates how easily an XR-15 Shorty "bullpup" rifle can accidentally go off just by hitting the butt of the gun against the ground (re-upload from July 29th shown below). The video was uploaded shortly after an incident where three NFAC members were hurt during a protest when one of their weapons allegedly discharged accidentally, and used to explain it.^[2]

Viewers were heavily critical of Grandmaster Jay's video, particularly pointing out that the gun Jay is using in the video is not a bullpup as claimed, and proving that it won't go off when slammed on the ground. On July 30th, Basic Bro Vet uploaded a video to YouTube^[3] disproving Jay's claim that the gun can go off by loading it and slamming it in the way described, garnering over 167,000 views in 5 months (shown below, left). On July 31st, GoonActual75 uploaded a similar video^[4] disproving Jay, garnering over 1.8 million views in a comparable span of time (shown below, right).

Grandmaster Jay's video encouraged a number of reactionary memes referring to the situation and bullpup configuration in general. On August 3rd, Full30 posted a meme referencing the situation to Facebook,^[5] garnering over 800 reactions and 160 shares in 5 months (shown below, left). On the same day, /u/chadamany uploaded a meme referencing the situation to /r/GunMemes,^[6] garnering over 590 upvotes in the same span of time (shown below, right).

You Know What? Fuck You Bullpups Your Weapon

Around January 19th, 2021, iFunny featured a number of memes relating to bullpups, particular in a snowclone format featuring a variation of the text, "You know what? Fuck you. *bullpups your*" typically followed by a type of weapon. For example, on January 19th @TheRadZad uploaded a meme to iFunny^[7] featuring the text "bullpup's your grenade launcher," which was featured, garnering over 29,000 smiles in 2 days (shown below, left). On the same day, @PaidIntern uploaded and had a meme following the same format featured on iFunny,^[8] garnering over 10,000 smiles in the same span of time (shown below, right).

It's unknown who started the format. iFunny continued to share variants of it over the course of the day, leading into the next day. On January 20th, @ChainsThePunk uploaded a variant of the meme to iFunny^[9] foregoing the use of the word "bullpup" garnering over 60,000 smiles in a day (shown below, left). On the same day, @GradedFrog45429 uploaded a knife variant of the meme to iFunny,^[10] garnering over 18,000 smiles in the same rough span of time (shown below, right).

The amount of Bullpup memes inspired a series of memes, which hit iFunny's featured page as well, implying that the poster has had enough of them (shown below, left and right).^[11]^[12]